Powerful Preacher

Campus minister is creating tomorrows leaders today at UNM

by Jose A. Aguilar

College students are the leaders of tomorrow, but Pastor Jim Cooper wants to make sure campus leaders exist today.

Like many Christians across the country, Cooper believes that in order to keep the revival of men and woman of God going, strong leaders need to be established. He feels that it is his calling to create these leaders from the students here at UNM. The 39-year- old New Jersey native, along with the members of his New Covenant Christian Church, are reaching out to students almost every day on campus. They believe that the students they minister to will be the ones that continue their mission of spreading the Gospel in the future.

“We came here to see this campus changed and to see Jesus receive the glory that is due his name through the lives of the college students on campus,” said Cooper.

Photo by: Jose A. Aguilar

Jim Cooper and Monte Perez teach a Bible Study to student Matt Medina inside the SUB at UNM

Since founding New Covenant Christian Church in January 2004, the ministers have reached out to thousands of students at UNM and by Cooper’s count more than 200 students have found Jesus. Staff members say that if it were not for the leadership and guidance of Cooper, the church might not have survived this long.

“As the leader of our church, he cares for the well being of the people,” said campus minister Monte Perez. “He leads with solid direction.”

It is the caring and genuine approach with which Cooper governs his church that Perez believes has carried them through hard times. It is what he thinks will help them continue to teach leadership qualities through the word to many more students, the same word that taught Cooper to be the leader he is today.

Like other college students in the early 90s, Cooper had dreams of what he wanted to be when he grew up. At the University of Arizona, he got involved with a campus church and through bible studies like the ones he teaches today and an undying love for Jesus, Cooper said knew he was born to spread the Gospel. After graduation he joined the ministry and soon got what he believes was a word from God to move to Albuquerque.

“God started speaking to me that he wanted me to go out and start a church,” said Cooper. “He started showing me that he was calling me to the University of New Mexico, which amazingly enough I had never even seen.”

Soon, Cooper was on his way to Albuquerque about to take on a role he had been preparing to play his whole life. Through faith and diligence his new church started to grow. Today the church, located on the corner of Central and Girard, has over 40 members.

It is a breezy spring day as Cooper sits in the campus Student Union Building at UNM four years later. He thinks back at how far he has come since the start of his church. He reminisces about all he has gone through, the good times and bad, almost unaware of how much the impact of his leadership has affected the lives of the people he watches over. Spend the day with him and you know that he doesn’t just preach what he believes but actually lives it. His example is what many people who meet him believe is his strongest leadership trait. People like senior Jeremy Landrum, who has become a man rooted in Cooper’s teaching and is ready to rise up and continue the message of Jesus after graduation.

“I’ve never met a pastor who is so solid, who is ruthless with every little area of his life. He, like no one else, talks the talk and walks the walk,” said Landrum.

That walk is leading the way for a new generation that will, what Cooper hopes for, change the world. If anything, Cooper knows that the way he lives his own life will inspire others more than any sermon he can give. He takes a minute to think about it as he watches over his five children and comes to a conclusion of what it truly takes to be a Christian leader today and in the days to come.

“It takes brokenness so you learn to sympathize and emphasize,” he said. “It takes humility, compassion and conviction. You not only say one thing but you actually do it.”

Perez says that Cooper’s conviction is what draws students and others to what he has to say. He sees that it is the belief and example of the one he follows that will create others like him to become leaders.

The writer is a member of New Covenant Christian Church.

Written May 1, 2008

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